


The Greater the Suffering

by Lauralot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Animal Death, Catholic Bucky Barnes, Catholic Steve Rogers, Christianity, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Murder, Prayer, Roman Catholicism, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 13:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4021843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Barnes the Compatriot is the patron saint of prisoners of war and lost persons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greater the Suffering

**Author's Note:**

> The wonderful [feanor_in_leather_pants](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Feanor_in_leather_pants/pseuds/Feanor_in_leather_pants) created some truly beautiful art of [Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes as Catholic saints](http://feanorinleatherpants.tumblr.com/tagged/saint-stevie), so I felt compelled to write some of Saint Bucky suffering, as saints do.

**You will be consoled according to the greatness of your sorrow and affliction; the greater the suffering, the greater will be the reward.**

—St. Mary Magdalen de'Pazzi

  


There are no denominations in the cells. 

Every night, slumped on the cold floors, exhausted from the day’s labors, it begins. They’ll be finishing their pathetic rations, willing themselves to believe their stomachs aren’t still painful empty, and someone will start praying. It spreads from cell to cell, like the lice itching at their scalps or the cough Bucky can feel settled deep in his lungs, but this isn’t painful. It’s a chorus of discordant voices somehow blending together in a desperate melody. 

Bucky hears everything at night, from “now I lay me down to sleep” to the Jews brave enough to pray in Hebrew. Some prayers are formless: tearful gasps of “Oh God, help me” are not rare. 

Bucky prays the rosary, counting the _Aves_ on one hand and the decades on the other. It’s a long prayer, and he cherishes that. It’s easy to lose himself in the repetition, to imagine for that precious half hour that he’s there alongside the apostles as the Holy Spirit descends, or rejoicing with the Blessed Mother as she finds her Son in the temple. From the second he makes the sign of the cross to the end of the _Salve, Regina_ , Bucky is out of the prison camp and kneeling in Mass alongside his parents and sisters, glancing to Steve across the aisle. When he prays the rosary, nothing hurts. 

In Brooklyn, the differences between Protestants and Catholics had seemed huge. A neighborhood boy once cheerfully told Bucky and Steve they were going to hell during an otherwise uneventful game of baseball. Once an old man at the market saw Bucky’s mother’s medal of the Virgin Mary and spat upon the ground. Pagans, he had called them, worshippers of the Great Whore. 

Here in the camp, half-starved and worked to the bone, the men cling to whatever comfort is offered. Dugan and Bucky are the only ones in the cell who speak Latin, but at Falsworth’s request, Bucky explains the mysteries, and he thinks the others try to meditate alongside them. Once, Bucky begins to translate the prayers into English, and Gabe says he knows the Our Father as the Lord’s Prayer. He joins in when Bucky and Dum Dum reach it, his “Our Father” joining their “ _Pater noster_ ,” and Bucky’s lips twitch into a smile. Gabe says it funny, adds the doxology to the end, but they don’t correct him.

But then it’s over, the final prayer, the concluding sign of the cross. And they’re back in the cell, aching and freezing, stomachs groaning with hunger. And maybe that’s just as cruel as the lice and the cough, in a way. 

*

“Have you chosen your saint?” Bucky asks. 

“For confirmation?” Steve’s pencil stills against the paper. They’d been outside with the other boys, shooting marbles, but the spring air had bothered Steve’s asthma, so Bucky’d suggested they go home and draw. “Yeah, Saint George.” 

Saint George, charging into battle to slay a dragon. Bucky should have guessed. “What, couldn’t find a patron saint for the small and bad-tempered?” 

Steve punches him in the arm, but he’s smiling. “What about you? Saint of people who think they’re funny?”

“Saint Sebastian,” Bucky says, doodling an arrow on his paper. 

“The one who just stood there and got shot a bunch?” Steve asks, settling back. “Why?” 

Bucky shrugs. He can’t put it in words. There’s a book at school about the suffering of the saints, and there’s a painting of Saint Sebastian in it. He’s got arrows sticking out of him, but he looks almost happy. Like he’s so sure God is with him that nothing even hurts. There’s another saint in the book like that, a statue of Saint Teresa, and staring at them, at the look on the faces—ecstasy, the nuns call it—makes something clench deep in Bucky’s stomach, but not in a bad way. He looks at Saint Sebastian’s picture more, though. The nuns whack their rulers on his desk if he looks at Saint Teresa too long, and Bucky’s never sure why. 

“He lived through all those arrows,” Bucky says finally. “He’s pretty tough too.” 

Steve shrugs, his attention already back on the paper. “Not as tough as a dragon slayer.” 

*

“James Barnes,” Bucky mumbles, his eyes half-lidded. The room is spinning. He’s flushed, sweating, burning and freezing all at once. Each breath he takes seems to scorch his lungs. “Sergeant. 32557038. James Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038.” 

There’s a scratching sound nearby. Maybe Zola’s writing. Maybe there are rats on the floor, come to chew out his eyes while he’s strapped on the table. He thinks of Hansel and Gretel, of bone tapping against the bars of the cage. 

“James Barnes.” The room is getting dark. “Sergeant. _Ave Maria, gratia plena_...7038. James Barnes. _Ave Maria, gratia plena: Dominus tecum_.”

When Bucky had enlisted—it seems so long ago now—his mother gave him a medal of Saint Michael, blessed by their priest. He wore it under his shirt during training, not wanting to give the other men anything to rib him about. The first time anyone else noticed it, they were already overseas. 

“That a necklace?” he’d been asked. 

“A soldier,” Bucky said, tilting his chin the way Steve always did before a fight. Daring anyone to mock him. 

But no one had. If anything, Bucky became their good luck charm. It wasn’t rare that they asked him to serve as an unofficial chaplain. Catholicism had symbols, its medals and rosary beads. He gave them something to focus on; he had trinkets they could take as physical signs of God’s favor. 

They asked him to pray before they went into the trenches, so he did. “Saint Michael, the archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and the snares of the Devil...” 

It had been a comfort then. Now, tied down, gasping prayers to his Holy Mother because it’s a struggle to remember his own name to recite, there’s no comfort to be had. 

He thinks of Saint Sebastian, smiling with an arrow buried into his gut. Bucky waits for the pain to reach its peak, for the ecstasy to flood through him. 

It never comes. 

*

“ _Ave Maria, gratia plena: Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus._ ”

Steve lets out a slow, rasping breath, and Bucky glances up from the rosary in his hands. Just a cold, Mrs. Rogers had called it when Bucky stopped by to deliver Steve’s homework. Sure didn’t sound like just a cold. 

“ _Sancta Maria,_ ” he continues, “ _Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus_ —”

“The hell?” Steve’s sitting up, deep, rattling coughs shaking his small frame. Bucky’s on his feet in an instant, holding a glass of water to his friend’s trembling lips. “ _Christ_ , Buck, I’m not an invalid.” He swipes the glass, glaring. “I get some sleep and you try giving me the Last Rites? Are you crazy?”

“Those weren’t the Last Rites,” is all Bucky says, sliding the rosary into his pocket. His face is red. He doesn’t know what he was thinking.

“Whatever. My ma already spends enough time praying for me. I don’t need you doing it too. I think it’s pretty clear I’m not one of God’s favorites.”

“Saints always suffer,” Bucky says, surprised at himself. Steve was trying to kid, to change the subject. Why did he say that?

“Well then, while you’re praying, mind telling him I don’t want to be a saint?”

*

He thinks he’s dead when Steve comes for him.

Delirious, he stares up at the man who pulled his straps free like they were made of newspaper, his face so familiar and so strange. Bucky decides he must be Saint Michael, come to fly Bucky to purgatory. Maybe this _is_ purgatory; maybe he died the night his unit was taken hostage and he’s finally burned free of sin and can see the gates of heaven. He’ll have to tell Steve he got it wrong whenever Steve finally keels over from pneumonia. He’s not Saint George, he’s Saint Michael.

That seems so fitting.

But it’s not Saint Michael. It’s Steve Rogers, reborn and saving Bucky’s ass for once. When they’re free of the camp, Bucky has to sit down, stunned. He shakes his head. “I prayed for a miracle.”

Steve just laughs. “Well, your ‘miracle’ would have been here earlier if he didn’t spend ages hocking war bonds. With all the people praying, you must have ended up on a waiting list.”

Bucky only smiles, hugging Steve tight, marveling over the difference in his friend’s body. For the first time in what seems like an eternity, there’s something in Bucky’s chest besides darkness and pain.

Steve still has his rosary. Bucky’s was lost when they were taken hostage. He lifts Steve’s with shaking hands, kissing first the crucifix and then the Blessed Virgin. He cries.

*

The Church has it wrong.

Hell, purgatory, wherever Bucky finds himself after he falls from the train, it’s not hot. It’s _freezing_. And it turns out the cold burns as badly as fire ever could.

Bucky can’t move. He can’t hold a coherent thought long enough to pray. _Now and at the hour of our death_ is all he can grasp, and it’s not even the right language. _Now and at the hour of our death._

There are figures around him, angels or demons, and for the first time in his life, Bucky understands what it means to be sore afraid. The figures are moving him, and at first he’s blind and deaf with pain, but as the agony ebbs he can make out their words. “You’ll be all right. We can mend you.”

He’s alive, then. Another miracle. And Bucky knows he should thank God, but he can’t find the words through the pain. Of course there’s pain. Those closest to God always suffer the most. The nuns would tell him to be grateful if they were at his side now.

And he is grateful. He just hopes that the suffering’s over. Surely he’s felt enough.

*

“You’ll stand here,” the priest explains. Bucky, Steve, and the others readying for confirmation move to where he directs them at the foot of the altar. Steve is coughing a little; the smell of incense is heavy in the air even when the thurible isn’t out. “I’ll anoint you with the chrism and—lightly—slap each of you on the cheek. Then you’ll be dismissed back to your seats until you come up for communion.”

“Father!” One of the girls, Martha, is raising her hand. “Father, what’s the slap for?”

Bucky misses the answer, staring over the altar at the tabernacle where the Eucharist is stored. He remembers his first year of school, when their teacher had led them into the sanctuary just after Adoration, when the monstrance was still sitting on the altar, candles on either side.

“Who can tell me,” she had asked them, “where Christ is?”

Bucky had waved his hand rapidly, eager to blurt out the answer his mother had taught him. “There He is!” he’d said, pointing to the host at the center of the monstrance, surrounded by shining gold. “He’s there!”

It seems so long ago now. It’s hard to think that it’s only been two years. It’s even harder to think that, come Sunday, he’ll be taking his first communion. He’s watched everyone else kneel at the altar since he was old enough to understand what was going on, opening their mouths for the priest to place the Eucharist on their tongues.

It almost makes Bucky dizzy, picturing it. He sees Steve watching in the corner of his eye and smiles at him. They’ll be side by side at the Mass. Everything will be fine.

*

His new hand is metal. He can turn his wrist, swing his arm at the shoulder, make a fist. The doctors are happy with the mobility. It feels strange to him, wrong, and as he stares at his shining new hand, all clenched together, he can’t help but to strike himself on the sternum.

They start with chickens, ask him to wring their necks and tell him he will be rewarded with their flesh cooked up as a meal. It’s easy. His hand is very strong and the chicken’s necks are weak.

Human necks are harder.

They take him back to his cell once he snaps one, and he sits in silence, staring the gleam of his hand in the dark. He makes a fist again, strikes his chest. Once, twice, three times. _Mea maxima culpa_ , he thinks, but he doesn’t know the meaning. 

He knows that he’s meant to obey. He remembers once hearing that obedience brings reward, contentment. Over time, he ceases to feel anything. He can no longer remember the name of the man he’s meant to follow, though he thinks it had once been very important. 

It doesn’t matter. He still obeys. 

One day a handler takes him to a dark room and makes him kneel. He does so eagerly, knowing without memory that kneeling means something important. Something precious, essential. 

“Open your mouth,” says the handler, and he remembers that too. 

What follows feels low. Filthy. At one point he is slapped. There’s a sinking in his chest. It should have been holy. He isn’t sure what holy means. He supposes he doesn’t deserve it, whatever it is. 

His life is cold darkness and bloody missions. Sometimes the missions are long, painful. Sometimes his handlers forget to feed him or make him work until he trembles with exhaustion. He’s grateful for that, though he can’t say why. It’s bringing him closer. Closer to what, he doesn’t know. 

One day he is leaving a home after a mission and he stops dead in the entryway. 

There is an alcove on the right side of the door, with a small statue placed upon a shelf. It is the likeness of a veiled woman. She is in white and blue, her arms outstretched. 

And he finds himself kneeling before her, his right hand moving from forehead to sternum, left shoulder to the right. He doesn’t know the significance. But when he straightens slowly, reverently—he’s wasting time there are deadlines he needs to be back in the van—he feels the need to approach her. He thinks that he should kiss her feet. Each foot has a golden rose atop it.

He stops before his lips can brush her sculpted skin. There is a snake under the woman’s heel. She’s crushing its neck.

He thinks this woman would not like what he’s done to the owners of the house. She wouldn’t like any of the things he can remember. So he has no right to touch her, unless she were to crush his throat as well. 

Before he leaves, he finds himself bowing toward her. He thinks he would not mind if someone were to crush his throat. He thinks that he deserves it. It would help him to atone and bring him closer. 

If only he could remember closer to what.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations for the Latin are as follows:
> 
>  _Pater noster_ : Our Father  
>  _Ave Maria, gratia plena: Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus._ : Hail Mary, full of grace: The Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.  
>  _Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus_ : Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners  
>  _Mea maxima culpa_ : My most grievous fault
> 
> The artworks of the saints that so captivated Bucky are Bernini's [Ecstasy of Saint Teresa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecstasy_of_Saint_Teresa) and Saraceni's [Saint Sebastian.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/SaraceniSebastian.jpg)


End file.
